


Samwise Gamgee, Phd. Servant of Neinna, Therapist of Valinor at your Service

by ten10texas



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22039837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ten10texas/pseuds/ten10texas
Summary: Sam arrives in Valinor and begins to build a little Shire for Frodo, Bilbo, and himself. Elves come by to see what these silly hobbits are doing and Sam listens to their stories. Soon, the elves discover Sam's simple way and attentive listening enables them to tell their stories in a way the lifts their burdens. More and more come, and Sam, thinking its just lovely of them to keep him company while he works, does not recognize the work he is doing as work at all. It's polite to listen, so he does, and he loves the elves. Finally, Nienna summons him to her Halls and Sam enters her service.So, this is certainly something different from my usual fics and I started writing it to amuse myself and give voice to a few characters who might feel a little...aggrieved...at their depiction in modern culture. But I am also amused at the idea of Feanor in therapy and so we'll see. The first few chapters are just ground work--how we end up with Sam in this role. Hope you enjoy this, I'm certainly amused by writing it. I love Sam, and I don't see many fics of him as the humble badass that he is.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	1. The New Shire

Hobbits in Valinor. It wasn't many, and they were so small as to be hardly noticeable, but, as is often the case with hobbits, their effect outweighed their size. Frodo and Bilbo came first, exhausted and heartsick from war and the weight of the Ring and time. At first, Frodo and Bilbo spent most of their days resting or chatting with friends. But as the weight of the Ring was gone, and their strength returned, their minds, as hobbit minds tended to do, turned to work.

As luck, or fate perhaps, would have it this was about the same time Sam showed up with one of the last batches of Rivendell elves, and Sam, as always, was up for _a turning a bit of earth_ , as he would say.

Three hobbits was _**quite**_ enough to make a difference, especially when one of them was Samwise Gamgee.

Slowly, in the midst of the great cities of the elves, a very tiny, and _**very**_ prosaic, Shire began to form with its orderly gardens and brightly colored doors, round windows and stone walls along the path that wound through the three grass covered hills with their little brick chimney's poking out. It was the perfect work of hundreds of years, what with elevensies and second breakfast and third lunch and first dinner and whatnot to pause and plan for. There were always parties as well and there was no longer any limit to time as it were. They didn't really _**need**_ hobbit holes, but Sam arrived and Frodo mentioned these hills and off they went and it was too perfect a spot and besides Sam missed Bag End and Frodo did too, a little. Bilbo quite liked the great cities of the elves, but he too thought a hobbit hole might be nice to have and really, what else did they have to do?

So they built, or rather Sam built. Frodo and Bilbo helped, but Sam was the builder, the designer, and did all the heavy work. Probably it would have gone faster had they all three worked at it, or if they'd taken the help of the many elves who watched, both fascinated and amused, but Sam would have none of it.

“Begging your pardon,” he'd say to any elf, Maia, or even the one time Tulkas the Vala offered help with a particularly heavy crossbeam, “but these are hobbit holes and this is hobbit work, though if you'd like a spot of tea I rather fancy one myself.”

So the work would stop and Sam and whoever it was, and sometimes Frodo and Bilbo too, would stop for tea time in the most finished part of the most finished hole. When it was all of the hobbits, there were songs and stories and much laughter, but sometimes it was just Sam and Sam did what he had always done—he listened.

Often Sam had nothing to say, the affairs of folks too high and mighty for him beyond his understanding at first, but he always, _**always**_ listened.Listening, really listening with full focused attention is a rare gift, a healing gift to give another. A story heard is a story shared, and a burden halved. Sam didn't know that, he just thought he was being polite like his old Gaffer taught him, bless his soul. As always, Sam played down the part he played, or perhaps he just really didn't see it. Even while Mayor of the Shire, a position the people voted and badgered him into seven times, he saw himself as more of a helper than a leader, though the land grew in richness and beauty more under his care than ever before. Then, too, he listened and he acted. But here he just listened—what did he know of these mighty folks' problems that he could do anything about them?

People left lighter than they came, let go of griefs they carried with them from Arda. More people came and if Sam was annoyed by the constant interruptions he showed no sign of it. Likely he wasn't, as there was no urgency to the work and Sam loved elves, loved their stories even when they were sad and even when sometimes terrible things happened in them. The terrible things were over and if they wanted to tell him their stories, why of course he'd sit a bit and listen. Would you care for some biscuits with your tea, Mr. Mablung? Let me fetch you some milk and fresh baked cookies, Lady Celebrian.

Sam rather enjoyed the company truth be told, though he often marveled that such folk enjoyed his. It was awfully nice for them to travel out to see him and tell their stories, and such stories they were!

For their part, the great and the mighty marveled that such a small being, invariably wearing neat but certainly quite ordinary clothes and no shoes at all, could embody so much of the grace of the Vala Nienna with none of the off-putting weeping. The Halfling could listen to the most terrible of tales, the most horrible of acts, and then, if he said anything at all, speak of the darkness passing and _**wasn't it such a good thing they all lived in the light these days**_? He was easier to talk to too, nothing intimidating about a little fat red cheeked hairy footed fellow working in the simplest of gardens.

And so, Sam began to heal wounds some had carried before the sun and the moon rose in the sky, and all unknown to him until one day the little Shire was done and Sam stood back, straitened his waist coat and said, “Well now, that's done and done well, fair enough to please my Gaffer, I say, which ought to be good enough for anybody.”

“Samwise Gamgee, whatever shall you do now?”

Sam turned and saw Gandalf driving a cart and two horses down the lane towards him and smiled to see his old friend, “Just in time for dinner!”

“I've not the time for the long drawn out affairs that are hobbit meals. I come bearing a message for you, Master Gamgee.”

Sam waited patiently, and the wizard, as wizards did, continued in his own good time, “The Lady of Mercy, Nienna, would see you at her Halls”

“What could such a great Lady as her want with me, Gandalf?”

The wizard lowered his brows and said, “Such is not mine to ask, my good hobbit! Come along now.”

“Without dinner? Surely not, for I've potato rolls and a lovely bit of meat pie just now ready! And we must pack provisions for such a journey, indeed.”

“I have already prepared, and prepared well for the journey, as you call it, thought the fair land of Valinor is but a lazy ride on a cool spring day compared to journeys you and I have shared.”

“Can't be meeting a great lady such as her without my best clothes and my Gaffer's watch, now Gandalf,” said Sam, already making for the door to his freshly finished hole.

Hobbits,” huffed Gandalf, and shook his head as he followed Sam inside to eat what was, in fact, a lovely dinner.


	2. Hope, Master Gamgee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it'll be another chapter before we get to therapy, but this seemed a reasonable place to stop. I'll have to think a bit about how to characterize Nienna.

The journey was just as Gandalf said, peaceful and beautiful, all rolling green fields, clear blue skies, just the best sort of weather the whole way. Nowhere was there hunger, nothing broken, and oh, the elves! Sam never got over how very many there were here. So many elves, and so many stories! Some so beautiful they made a body want to cry, some so horrible as to turn a person's heart to shivering ice, some magnificent with lines of bright elves in fair armor, and he was honored to hear them all. Gandalf listened too, though sometimes, inexplicably, he would get up from the campfire, or from around the hearth, or by the fireplace and wander off. Sam noticed this was often the time the poor elves told something particularly awful, or embarrassing or some deed they'd done that was, sometimes, so awful Sam could hardly believe an elf could do such a thing like that. The Kinslaying! For boats! It seemed rather rude of Gandalf to pick that time to bugger off, but wizards had their own ways and they certainly wouldn't listen to the likes of him, no sir.

The elves were all so sorry, the ones that did wrong, and Sam felt right poorly for them. It had been thousands of years of guilt sometimes, and guilt never did anybody any good, not even the person you'd harmed. He thought of Stinker, and how even Stinker had played a part, like Gandalf told Mr. Frodo in Moria. Mercy. Pity. Bilbo let him live when Sam would have killed him twice over. Useless he'd called him, and he'd been wrong, he had. Biting off Mr. Frodo's finger had saved Mr. Frodo and all of them. Poor Mr. Frodo, but here he was in Valinor, here they all were, and all of that was over and it didn't do anybody any good to think about the darkness when they lived in the Light.

The road went ever onward, but finally they began to smell the sea and far off in the distance Sam saw a grand hall of smooth gray stones. Not the usual sort of elven hall at all, this was all straight lines and little ornamentation and over it fell rain from dark clouds that sat over the place in a circle. Unnatural, it was. It seemed a sorrowful place, the kind of place that would make you sad even if you didn't start that way, and while it didn't look evil like Mordor, it sure didn't look happy. Sam pulled his coat around him and shivered, then looked over at Gandalf, “Bit sad, ain't it?”

“Sad? No. It is far more than sad, Sam. There lives Nienna, Queen of the Valar, and there she must know all the grief in all the world.”

Well now, that was more than he could ever comprehend, being but a hobbit and an ordinary hobbit at that. “That don't seem right, a great lady like that having to, well,” he thought of a few of the tales he'd heard, ones that he'd thought about for more than just a night, Celebrian's tale came to mind, poor Elrond's wife, he'd had nothing to give her and still she thanked him like he'd somehow helped, “it don't seem right.”

“Right? No, perhaps not. But it is her part in the music and she chose it, or it chose her and she said yes. It is sometimes hard to remember. I chose it as well.”

“You?” Sam said incredulously. Gandalf was always laughing; even in the darkest of times he could be depended upon to find some joy, some hope, some pleasure even if it was just a bit of pipeweed.

Gandalf glanced over at him and drew his brows together, “Me, Master Gamgee, me indeed.” And then he laughed at the hobbit's expression as they rode into the rain.

Sam expected it to be cold and uncomfortable, but this rain was rather the opposite of that. It was warm, and where it touched his skin he felt comfortable, comforted, as if rain could be a fine combination of a warm bath, a comfortable chair and a spot of tea with a nice book by the fire, an ale with good friends at the Green Dragon, and a good cry in the arms of someone who loved you; all the things that made a body feel like the good far outweighed the bad in the world after the bad stuck it's finger on the scale. He found himself stripping off his hat and coat, rolling up his shirt sleeves, and lifting his face to the soothing gray sky.

“Not what you expected, hmm?”

Sam shook his head, “No, it's not sad at all. That's not right. It's sad, but it's not.”

“Hope, Samwise. You spoke of it yourself to Frodo in Mordor, or so he tells it.”

“Hope,” Sam agreed. “But begging your pardon, Gandalf, this is a mite more powerful than any words I ever spoke.”

Gandalf looked down at him and smiled, “Do you think so? Perhaps you are right. Though hobbits are surprising creatures, even to themselves.”

Sam had nothing to say to that and as they had reached the entrance to the courtyard to the Lady's Halls he held his tongue.


	3. Nienna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it may be a few chapters before we get to the therapy. It will come though. Not sure why these chapters are so short when I generally write LONG chapters but it just feels right. Hope you enjoy it. Sam is possibly my favorite character, followed by Gandalf, so I have to do his justice. I've tried to make them sound like themselves, and hope I've got it more right than not.

There were no guards. No door for that matter. Gandalf rode through the entrance and then around to the stables where an elf dressed in dove gray robes much like Gandalf's came out to meet them.

“Greetings, Mithrandir.”

“And to you, Celeduil. This is Samwise Gamgee, an estimable hobbit of the Shire.”

Sam stepped down from the little cart and bowed, “Pleased to meet you.”

Celeduil smiled and it seemed as though the sun broke through the clouds, “A star shines on our meeting, elf-friend. I have heard of your deeds, and glad I am to meet you this day.”

Sam blushed beet red, from the top of his feet to the tips of his ears, and stammered, “Weren't no truth to those tales, I say. I haven't done much of anything.”

“False modesty is as bad as false pride, Master Samwise! Well you know your part in the destruction of the Ring, or so you should,” snapped Gandalf. Then the wizard sighed and said, “Come along, then, you may tell Celeduil all about the things you haven't done later.”

“Are we to have lunch then? I'm fair famished.”

At that Celeduil laughed and said, “Come, Gandalf, let us break bread before he meets the Lady Nienna.”

“Oh, very well, but hobbits are forever eating and it would not hurt the fat little fellow to wait for a meal.”

Sam stood up, his pride wounded and said, “I am a right proper size for a hobbit, I'll have you know!”

“Yes, yes, of course. Let us dine then and be done with it.”

Gandalf strode ahead and into the great hall, Celeduil following behind, still laughing merrily. Sam felt annoyed until he caught sight of a great lady, clothed all in shades of gray, sitting at the head of a table piled high with food. Beautiful she was, fair like the stars and the moon shining clear after a fierce storm. No, like the one time the vile clouds of Mordor had parted and he saw, for a moment, the stars so bright in contrast he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful or so hopeful. He'd never seen anyone more fair, and he stopped and couldn't move, speak, too much for an ordinary fellow like himself.

“It seems the Lady of Mercy has taken heed of your cries of hunger, little hobbit,” Celeduil said with a smile, “Come, you are welcome, as are all, at her table.”

But Sam couldn't move, he couldn't join such a great lady, he could hardly bear to look upon her.

“Sam.”

One word, but the gentlest of summons. An invitation, rather. And oh, he wanted to go but for such as him?

“My table is open to all who are willing to sup with me.”

He fought within himself. He weren't worthy of such honor, but oh he wanted to look upon the lady again.

“Sam,” a soft voice, full of mirth as well as pity, and he looked up to see the great lady kneeling next to him and smiling, and oh, such a smile it was! Like springtime and Elanor's first laugh, and Rosie on their wedding day and all the best things, the best things, and he felt tears coming to his eyes and he cried.

She took him by the hand and led him to her table. There was a great tall chair for her, and for him a hobbit size chair on a sort of tall dais with little steps in the side, perfect for him to sit at a table made for big people. There was even a little ledge built into it so his feet didn't dangle like a child's and it fit him, like it were made for him. He knew then that the great lady had called for him, and planned for his comfort, that he was wanted here and that there was some _**purpose**_ for him here.

That just made Sam pleased as punch, it did. He hadn't had the faintest idea of what to do after he finished the Shire, Valinor being perfect like it was. Oh, he could do a bit of farming, a bit of gardening, grow a bit of pipeweed, but it weren't quite enough and he didn't have Mr. Frodo and Mr. Bilbo's way with words nor did he exactly enjoy to write.

He'd accompanied Frodo on his adventure, but Sam rather felt that this one would be his.


End file.
